[Wearable Technique for the Assessment of Parkinson Symptoms: What's the Future?]

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a multisystem disorder with a plethora of symptoms affecting the quality of life of patients in the home environment. Due to the rapid development of wearable technique in the health and fitness sector, an increasing number of such wearable devices are available to complement diagnostic strategies of PD symptoms not only in the clinical but also in the home environment. This development has clear advantages over clinical evaluation, as the latter is relatively subjective, time-consuming and costly, and provides only a snapshot of the condition. First results about the use of such technology for the assessment of PD symptoms (including bradykinesia, dyskinesia, tremor, daily activity and sleep behavior) in the home environment are promising. They suggest that these techniques can provide complementary information about the symptoms of PD patients, and have the potential to be included in future diagnostic workup concepts of routine care in PD. The use of such technique provides also the opportunity to more actively include patients into medical decision-making processes.